


Calypso Rising

by pvwork



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Spoilers, ready 2 get jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 12:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/pseuds/pvwork
Summary: “It’s me, or the mission.”





	Calypso Rising

1.

It’s summer, so that ants come out. They crawl all over everything, but you can’t bear to kill them, so you flick them off your arms, your legs. You’re careful to never leave food out.

Your little sister, Anne, loves to make mud pies. You sit outside with her and squirm like a toddler so that the ants avoid crawling onto you. Their tiny bodies are like em dashes that have stepped off the pages of the book you're trying to read. You’ve been on the same page for ages, all your attention taken up by the brightness in Anne’s eyes as she laughs and smashes more mud onto her t-shirt.

Your mother walks over and gestures for the two of you to get up off the patch of grass still wet from the evening’s watering. Thanks municipal water supplier.

“Pack up. We’re leaving this town.”

To keep the ants off of you, you have to keep moving.

*

It’s summer and the testing center is hot.

It’s crowded with people, mostly boys, milling around the few flight modules that have been set up. Everyone keeps their distance from the official looking men in uniforms.

Your mother pushes you out of the doorway and into the room more fully. She waves at you as she turns to leave and you notice that this is the first time you’ve seen her ring finger bare. There’s a strip of lighter skin where her wedding band used to sit.

Years later, you’ll look back and wonder if she pawned it to pay for your test or if she had finally come to terms with the loss of Him on the day she decided to remake you in His image.

2.

“Hi, I’m Takashi Shirogane. That’s Matt Holt. We’re looking forward to being your roommates this year.”

*

The land around the Garrison is very flat. It’s very hot.

The desert is an environment of extremes.

The first time you see a scorpion creep out of hiding in the early evening, you suppress a scream. Takashi laughs when you point it out. “It’s nothing to worry about it. Remember, they’re probably more afraid of you than the other way around.”

You have to try to deny that you were afraid, after all, your pride is on the line. You were surprised by this sign of life in a place that seems so desolate.

Takashi goes back to setting up the tent. You’ve been partnered up for this outdoor seminar on survival training.

“We’re going to make you adaptable as fuck,” Instructor Harris had said before hastily correcting himself.

*

Takashi always picks you for a partner. You start to wonder if it might mean something more. You go through piloting seminars and speech courses together and time and time again in the flight modules he chooses you to be his co-pilot.

It’s like getting picked first for dodgeball and the dodgeball team only has two people and the dodgeball captain was the best player in the whole league.

Matt flits in and out of your orbits, because he’s off doing special “comms stuff” and only shows up at their lunch table two out of five days at best.

“You're my best friend,” Takashi replies easily when you ask. “Is that what you want?”

“More,” you croak, and he gives that to you easily too, with that shy grin on his face like he wants to put you at ease.

3.

“You should’ve seen this kid,” Takashi tells you over dinner.

You’ve thrown together some chicken thighs and sweet potatoes, soy sauce and teriyaki sauce, to bake in the oven, and they’ve turned out really good. Not too sweet, not too salty. The chicken is tender and the sweet potatoes are savory but still sweet.

“Really?” you ask. You’re feeling playful. It’s good to have him back in your shared apartment, eating off of the plates that you picked out together at the local general store. “What’d I miss?”

“He gets top scores on the flight sim and then steals my car the minute my back is turned when I’m talking to the headmistress. I don’t know how he managed to get through both the biometrics and the six digit passcode, but,” here Takashi pauses and grins, “he was something else.”

You laugh helplessly. He looks so gleeful at the prospect of recruiting such a troublemaker to the Garrison.

*

The way Takashi walks out of the clinic, you know it’s bad news before he even opens his mouth.

The bag of corn in your hand slips and the ducks around your feet quack and squabble amongst themselves as he tells you that there’s no cure.

The kiss you share tastes like the ocean.

4.

“It’s me, or the mission.”

“Adam, please. You don’t want to do this.”

“Why? Why don’t I want to do this! Because I know what you’ll choose, and I know that you won’t choose me? What am I to you?”

“You’re my fiance. You mean so much to me.”

“But not more than your precious mission. The star on your crown of achievements that you’ve been gunning for since joining up. A chance to pilot the first manned mission to the middle of nowhere.”

“Adam.”

“You picked me because I was the easy choice, but when things get hard, I’m never going to be your first choice even though you’ve always been mine.

5.

Hearing the news about Kerberos is like getting dunked into a tank full of cold water and then forgetting to come up for air for days at a time.

You experience everything through a layer of remove. The water, the news, numbs you until you’re just four feelings and a body floating through each day.

Even Matt is no longer around to bother you into spontaneous games of laser tag or cajole you into attending his improv groups’ performances. When you look around, all you can see are the words ‘pilot error’ on everyone’s lips.

Could you have made a difference if you have been there?

No, you decide, your presence wouldn’t have done a damn thing. Men like Takashi, like Takashi, were born to fly. You studied together and paired up for group projects, but when you were in the sims, it was like you were an afterthought and the machine was an extension of Takashi’s body as he imposed his will upon the machine.

You ignore Keith when you see him in the hallways. You don’t want to be reminded of what Takashi might have seen in him. He’s just a boy, and if you were a better man, maybe you would reach out or something. It feels like you’re the only two people left who remembered Takashi as something more than just a pilot.

*

News of Keith’s expulsion trickles into the instructors’ breakroom one morning paired with the drip of the coffee machine. You’re getting ready for your morning class when you hear about it. You sigh and reshuffle the lecture notes that you’ve been preparing for the day.

“Let’s watch some high and low lights from the flight sims today. You tell me what you think the pilots did right and what they did wrong, and I’ll judge whether your trying to bullshit me or not.”

That always gets a laugh.

“Let’s start with a highlight. This run is by TS0192, otherwise known to some of you flight jockeys as Takashi Shirogane.”

6.

There’s a buzz in your ears. It gets louder and louder. It’s like a swarm of bees is weaving all around you. The air shimmers.

Takashi is standing at the edge of the flight deck. Behind him, are five giant robotic lions. His hair is all white and there’s a scar bisecting his face but his eyes are still as warm as ever as he laughs at something just outside of your line of sight. He turns and you follow his gaze. It’s Keith. Except he’s taller, broader, and the scar on his cheek pulls his smile to one side charmingly.

You look down and your vision blurs this time.

Is getting old always like this?

*

The whole story comes to you in bits and pieces. Part of it have to be pure bullshit.

Keith brought Takashi back to life with the sound of his voice. Takashi’s soul is piloting the body of one of his clones that the aliens that abducted him grew for him. Three kids from Earth and Takashi were chosen to become the defenders of the universe.

Maybe that’s true. You wouldn’t know and at this point you don’t give a fuck. Let others be the judge of that.

You only know what you’ve seen, what you’ve done. You’re the one who kept his memory alive, who reminded other people that he was an excellent pilot over and over. It had been a thankless task.

Do you love him, Anne had asked over the phone.

I don’t know, you had replied, but you might as well have said yes. You love him like an astronomer loves a distant star. Hopelessly. Illogically. There’s no explanation for your blind devotion other than love. Tragic.

*

You watch Keith. It’s like you can’t bear to look away.

He finally grew out of being sullen and ill tempered. There’s a patience about the way he carries himself, like he knows he’s capable of things that you could only dream of. There’s a confidence to his don’t-fuck-with-me attitude that promises that he can make good on his threats. He’s grown. Every move of his seems to carry with it the faint promise of danger.

It’s funny because Takashi seems softer now somehow. He spends so much time with the commanders and generals that he’s rarely seen prowling the halls as often as Keith, who seems restless and agitated.

But whenever they’re together, the miasma of menace that seems to hang over Keith briefly lifts and the soft look on Takashi’s face when they dine together in the cafeteria never fades. When they talk, it’s like they’re the only two people in the room.

You feel lucky you’ve never seen them kiss, but it feels like you don’t have to in order to be hurt by the sheer clarity of their intimacy.

When Keith touches Takashi’s elbow, when Takashi presses the tips of two of his fingers to the back of Keith’s wrist, the ease in which they move in and out of each other’s space, has you looking away every time.

Has you walking out of dining halls and meeting rooms and one memorable time, the weight room.

*

Look at what you’ve lost.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss it more.

**Author's Note:**

> for k. sea salt caramel 4 life.


End file.
